My former AJC colleague (and soccer aficionado) Mark Bradley wrote yesterday about the unusual and respectable across-the-board showing of Atlanta pro sports teams and how this might mean (jokingly) that “I might not have a job much longer.”

If a sports columnist doesn’t have a bad team to rip, what’s he good for?

Tucked away among the reader rants about Bobby Cox, Georgia Tech football, et al, was this reminder from a soul with the online handle of “All I’m Saying Is . . .:”

“No one paid any attention to the one championship team we did have which was the Atlanta Chiefs of the North American Soccer League.”

That was the extent of the comment. In 1968, the first year of the NASL, the league crowned the Atlanta Chiefs, coached by Phil Woosnam, who later became the NASL commissioner. It would be nearly three decades before the Atlanta Braves won their only World Series title.

From georgiaencyclopedia.org, courtesy of Phil Woosnam

I just saw Phil a couple weeks ago at the Atlanta Beat announcement. After living many years in New York, he returned to Atlanta to marshal the Olympic soccer venue in Athens and now resides in Marietta. He provided the photo to the right of the victorious Chiefs for the Georgia Encyclopedia.

He probably didn’t see this comment on Bradley’s blog, but I’m sure if he had, it would have brought that wry Welsh smile to his face.

Last fall Decatur resident John Turnbull penned this piece on Chiefs star Ron Newman, who had a long coaching career in the United States, including with the Kansas City Wizards at the birth of Major League Soccer.

One of the key members of that Chiefs title team, Kaizer Motaung, returned to his native South Africa in 1970 and founded the Kaizer Chiefs, one of the most popular clubs in the country that will play host to next year’s World Cup. He’s still in charge of the club, which is based in Soweto.

He’s been gone from Atlanta for a long time, as have the Chiefs, but the rich memories live on.